Project overview
The RSE Metascience project is an international collaboration dedicated to understanding how research software and the people who create it shape the modern research ecosystem. As the production of digital research outputs continues to accelerate, this project provides the evidence base needed to analyse the human, organisational, and technical infrastructures that underpin contemporary science.
The project builds directly on a decade of work from the International Research Software Engineer (RSE) Survey, first launched in 2016 in the UK at a time when the RSE role was only beginning to be recognised. Initially designed to identify and understand individuals who develop software for research, the survey rapidly expanded to a global effort, now covering more than 40 countries and producing the most comprehensive longitudinal dataset on research‑software practice worldwide.
RSE Metascience brings this dataset into a new phase, establishing the RSE Metascience Repository, developing interactive tools for exploring trends across years and regions, and conducting advanced analyses of software provenance, research outputs, and organisational contexts. These insights support evidence‑based policy, improve understanding of the RSE workforce, and contribute to broader metascience questions about reliability, incentives, and the evolution of scientific labour.
A central output of the project is the RSE Metascience Repository, which curates and preserves all past survey data from 2016 onwards. The repository provides a stable, long‑term resource for researchers, policymakers, and national RSE associations, enabling systematic, reproducible analysis of evolving roles, skills, demographics, and practices. Alongside the repository, an interactive dashboard offers an accessible way to explore trends across regions and years; allowing users to visualise job titles, research domains, coding practices, training needs, open‑science behaviours, and more. Together, the repository and dashboard transform the survey into a living research infrastructure that empowers both metascience researchers and the global RSE community to investigate how software‑driven research is changing.
This work is carried out through a partnership between University of Southampton and Kiel University, combining complementary expertise in metascience, digital research infrastructures, research‑software studies, and survey methodology. Together, the two institutions are building a shared foundation for high‑quality, open, and reproducible metascience research centred on the people who build the software that drives modern science.
The project builds directly on a decade of work from the International Research Software Engineer (RSE) Survey, first launched in 2016 in the UK at a time when the RSE role was only beginning to be recognised. Initially designed to identify and understand individuals who develop software for research, the survey rapidly expanded to a global effort, now covering more than 40 countries and producing the most comprehensive longitudinal dataset on research‑software practice worldwide.
RSE Metascience brings this dataset into a new phase, establishing the RSE Metascience Repository, developing interactive tools for exploring trends across years and regions, and conducting advanced analyses of software provenance, research outputs, and organisational contexts. These insights support evidence‑based policy, improve understanding of the RSE workforce, and contribute to broader metascience questions about reliability, incentives, and the evolution of scientific labour.
A central output of the project is the RSE Metascience Repository, which curates and preserves all past survey data from 2016 onwards. The repository provides a stable, long‑term resource for researchers, policymakers, and national RSE associations, enabling systematic, reproducible analysis of evolving roles, skills, demographics, and practices. Alongside the repository, an interactive dashboard offers an accessible way to explore trends across regions and years; allowing users to visualise job titles, research domains, coding practices, training needs, open‑science behaviours, and more. Together, the repository and dashboard transform the survey into a living research infrastructure that empowers both metascience researchers and the global RSE community to investigate how software‑driven research is changing.
This work is carried out through a partnership between University of Southampton and Kiel University, combining complementary expertise in metascience, digital research infrastructures, research‑software studies, and survey methodology. Together, the two institutions are building a shared foundation for high‑quality, open, and reproducible metascience research centred on the people who build the software that drives modern science.
